He came in the night, that bitter Christmas Eve. I suppose 'it' came in the night would be more fitting, but I haven't ruled out the possibility of it being a man; not yet anyway. Yes, there was nothing human about him, but if I allow those thoughts to linger, I'll never get out of this institution.

Yes, it was a man who killed them; it had to be. There's no such thing as paranormal or supernatural creatures. At the time, sure, I was convinced he was an it, or something that couldn't be rationally explained away, but I cannot allow those thoughts to take root again. It was only my youthful imagination that made him seem so beastly. That's what Doctor Ross told me.

This year marks the tenth anniversary. A whole decade has almost gone by since my family was slaughtered in my childhood home. If nothing else, I wasn't held responsible for the crime, even if I was the last man standing, so to speak. Even with that being the case, there was no way that a small-framed, skinny eight-year-old kid could have done those things; they couldn't deny that.

My recollection of what I witnessed that brutal night didn't help, mind you. It did; however, land me in this god-forsaken facility for the remainder of my formative years. At the time; after it happened anyway, I was hysterical. A state that was only intensified by their disbelief in what I told them.

I just couldn't understand it, you know? Why wouldn't they listen? I knew what I saw; what I felt! I did not doubt that creature took away everyone I loved…I thought that was the case anyway. Of course, I'm fully aware that these images that still cut into the back of my eyelids were nothing more than the trauma of seeing such a thing, especially at such a young age.

I know it didn't happen how I remember it. That's what I'm supposed to believe.

I know, these ramblings probably make it sound like I'm exactly where I belong; where I must remain until I truly understand what's real and what isn't. Ross told me to write it all down, so I could see with my own eyes how preposterous it sounds. Perhaps that will allow me to move on; deal with my loss and rejoin the world once more.

Maybe then, I can get past this and learn to push away the scars etched upon my subconscious; to see for myself what is and what isn't.

Maybe then, I can see the truth of things.

Maybe then…I can go home.

I've been here for many years at this point, so I've gotten to know just about everyone quite well. We do have internet access here, which we are given access to in a case by case basis. I'm not suicidal; well, not anymore, so I am one of the numerous 'tenants' of this home away from home who can use some of the luxuries that some of the more disturbed aren't permitted to, so I chose to post this here.

Ross told me to write all of this down; he didn't say it had to be with pen and paper. I apologize in advance for perhaps using this platform as a device in my healing, but perhaps anyone reading these words can provide some insight the doctors can't. It may be a long shot, but if there's anyone out there who has been through something similar, I would be very grateful for anything you may be able to offer on the subject.

Late December 2012. That's when it happened. My parents weren't exactly well off. They would still scrimp and save every penny they could to ensure my sister and I had at least something under the tree, but that wasn't a big deal to us. Katie was twice my age, but she would still get excited around the holidays, even being a cynical and sarcastic teenager.

My folks both worked pretty grueling schedules, so I was left in my sister's care most days. Sure, we'd bicker sometimes, as siblings often do, but I looked up to her and I loved her. That's how it was, right? Yes, I loved her and my parents. They were everything to me.

My mom worked mornings at a local diner, while my dad had a second-shift job at a nearby factory. There were days I would only see one or the other, depending on overtime and such, but they were always attentive when they were home. Well, that's what parents do, isn't it; take care of their children?

Though we didn't have any illusions about who set the presents under the tree, as our parents never pushed the seasonal mythology on us, we were always grateful for what they bought us. It was more the time together I cherished; far more so than whatever I would unwrap Christmas morning. It was the only day of the year both of my folks would outright refuse to work, even if bills were piling up.

I remember feeling so warm when I laid down to rest that night before the big day, just knowing they would be there when I awoke. I think…no…no, that's not right. My father was upset about something that night. Yes, I struggled to sleep; tossed and turned until I finally passed out. I was crying about something. Is that right? What was it that had me so worked up?

No, none of that matters. This is about the stranger who came calling. Sure, my memories may be a bit shuffled around, given what happened, but we were a loving family; always were. Whatever happened before that night doesn't matter. I was asleep when he arrived if that's the proper word for it. It was more like he crash-landed in our home.

I don't know what time it was, but it sounded like the ceiling was caving down around me. It jarred me awake; left my mind reeling from the shock of it. I was scared to leave my bedroom. I just sat upright with the blanket pulled up to my chin, shivering as though the temperature in the room had plummeted. Of course, it had done that very thing; I could see my foggy breath pushing around the fabric as I huddled for warmth.

It was Katie's screaming that convinced me to crawl under my bed. I'd heard her yell over the years; shouting in anger or frustration, but nothing like this. My bladder almost gave out, just from the sheer magnitude of it. It was like she was trying to add words to her wailing fit, but only gargles and howls made it through.

I heard my parents' bedroom door open…no…no, it wasn't my parents' door, it was my father's. He and my mother had separate rooms; they hadn't shared a bed in years. I can't remember why. It was likely just the different shifts they worked. Yes, that was probably it. They didn't want to disturb one another; that makes sense.

When his door opened, he yelled out, spilling curses and cocking his shotgun. Katie was still whimpering, but it was weaker, like she was tiring out or something. The intruder laughed when my dad threatened him; told him he'd fill his guts full of lead if he didn't let her go. Something hard hit the wall, tumbling to the floor after.

The shotgun discharged…I heard the shell fragmenting as though it hit a steel door, while the stranger let out another laugh that was so shrill; so heartless, and free of actual levity, that I pushed my hands to my ears, so hard I thought I may just squash them both.

Over and over again, the gun went off, but the invader still just cackled like a madman. I could hear the heavy footsteps across the floor, ending right outside my door. My father shouted again, but it didn't stop the man from pushing through my door, splitting and shattering the wood.

It opened out; I remember that much. He could have easily pulled it open; it was never locked…wait. It was locked many nights, but not this one. He slammed against it, raining splinters across the bed I hid beneath.

I was crying; wailing out as my sister had. I could see everything now; everything that happened next. While I still cowered beneath the box spring, I couldn't not stare through the open entryway, though I begged my eyes to turn away. They ignored my mental pleas, remaining peeled open to gaze at the gruesome sight beyond the threshold of my room.

My dad charged at the man…no, it wasn't a man. Yes, it was; of course, it was. He was wearing a costume or something. That's what deflected the shotgun shells. That makes sense. Though I could only see his legs at first; those worn leather, buckled boots, with matted white and mud-speckled fur lining at the top, my curiosity overruled my senses.

No, they weren't boots...they were hooves; wide, chipped, and jagged hooves. That can't be right. Yes, they were boots; boots shaped like hooves at the bottom. They were just part of the costume. Part of the facade.

Before I realized it, I was pulling myself forward, closer to the end of the bed, to get a better view of what was going on. He was taller than my door frame. I could only see up to his shoulders through the opening.

He was wearing a Santa Claus outfit; a filthy, torn, and stained one. The sleeves were twice as long as all of the images I had seen of old St. Nick, with thin, boney fingers hanging almost a foot past the ragged cuffs. It had to be some sort of costume, but I could swear the fingers moved as if they were real, though I knew that was impossible.

It had to be some sort of prosthetic or extravagant mechanical prop that made his arms double the length of any I had ever seen, but when one of them raised past the view of what I could see beyond the door, I could hear those elongated fingers crunch into something. My father's agonized shriek coincided with that horrendous sound before he was pulled back towards the stranger in the red and white suit.

When my dad came into view, just beyond where my door used to be, I slapped my hand to my mouth to muffle the scream I couldn't even hope to hold back. Christ...the entire slender hand of the stranger was impaled through the side of my father's chest. He wheezed and coughed, likely from his lungs filling with the same blood that gushed from his trembling mouth. My god, I can see it so clearly!

He was attempting to swat at the stranger; swinging the shotgun he still held, but there was little force behind his strikes. He...didn't have any strength left. When the intruder raised his other boney hand to my dad's face, my old man let go of his weapon, attempting to pull away the jagged fingernails as they tore into his flesh, carving deep ditches into his cheeks, with strips of his flesh peeling away behind them.

My father squealed from the shock and pain of his skin being shredded, but the fingers did not pull free until they reached his midsection. I was gasping for breath, violently trembling at the sight of him dangling from the outstretched hand that was still pushed into his chest when I finally saw the face of the creature…the man in the costume, as it leaned in to look my dad in the eye; the one that had not been split in two, anyway.

His face was thin, with sunken cheeks that were so shallow, I almost thought they were holes in his flesh at first. The stringy beard that hung from his chin to his navel was smeared with just as much muck and gore as the rest of his suit, while the large, wide, and circular eyes seemed to flicker like headlights shining upon a cat in the darkness. His brow protruded an inch or two from his head, with two uneven horns curling in opposing directions; the left one twice as long as the right.

The image is as clear as day; as though I'm looking that monster in the eye right now…the man in the mask. Jesus…it had to be a mask, right?

When he turned to face me, I felt every drop of blood drain from my body as he winked and smiled; his dried, split, and chapped lips peeling away from the jagged and uneven teeth. As he opened his mouth as though to laugh once more, his tongue sprang free like the tentacle of a Kraken being freed from its cavern, slapping against my father's face.

It wriggled into the hole he had torn into my old man's cheek, pushing through the other side, before pulling back, splashing thick saliva and gore across the railing of the stairs. He did not break the gaze of those haunting eyes from mine as he held up two of his long fingers as though he were making a peace sign.

He allowed me to focus on them; the sickeningly yellow skin, wrinkled with boils and pockmarks, before he swiftly pierced them into my father's eyes, bursting the one that had still been in one piece, before pushing through the back of his skull. My bladder let loose, just like it feels like it wants to do right now. I could barely fathom it…what I was watching.

"Naughty, naughty," he said in a disturbingly soft and almost pleasant voice as he dropped the corpse of my dad to the carpet.

He glanced back at me before continuing his stroll down the hall, breaking through my mother's door as he had mine. I desperately wanted to pull myself free and run from my room, out into the street to scream out for help, but I was frozen! I couldn't convince my body to move, I just lay there, cowering and crying, feeling hopeless; feeling useless.

My mom's shrieks were the most painful of all to hear. That shrill and high-pitched sound still echoes against the inner walls of my subconscious to this day. I could hear her battling against him in vain; her legs and arms pounding against the walls and floor as he dragged her from her bedroom.

There was a snapping sound, followed by another squeal; something I assumed to be the first assault of the stranger; well, the first after pulling her from her bed anyway. I would see, when he dragged her to my doorway, that the fingernails were peeled back on several of her fingers, where she had attempted to grab onto something as he pulled her from her haven.

Once more, I would have to watch her suffer as her husband had, put on display for me, like some demented puppet show, with my doorway being the stage. He did not cause her as much suffering as my father, but he did not show her any mercy either.

As he held her outstretched before him, one hand gripping tightly onto her shoulder, the other dancing its fingers across her chest and stomach as though he was typing a long number into a payphone, each poke digging into her flesh, tearing away chunks of meat on their swift exits. I tried again to shut my eyes and hide away from this awful sight, but I couldn't! Dear God, I couldn't even turn my head!

She howled louder with every pierce of her skin, retching across his arm in the process. This did not break his focus, though he growled in a strange sort of rippling sound, as though he rapidly tapped his Adam's apple while he moaned. It was a sound that almost caused my gut to rebel as my bladder had.

With blood now dripping to the floor, trickling from each of the numerous wounds he had jabbed into her, he just stared at her as she wept. I could tell she was weakening as her husband had only moments before, with her arms hanging limp at her sides. I could barely differentiate my sobs from hers as we both shed tears over this brutal invasion of our home.

"STOP!" I yelled out, gasping for breath between my hopeless wails, finally convincing my body to do something I demanded.

"NO MORE! LET HER GO! PLEASE!!"

He did as I asked, dropping her to the floor at his feet. He just stared back at me again, those unwavering and hauntingly bright eyes cutting through my own. We shared that gaze for what felt like an eternity, and while I was certain my blood would be splashed across the walls any moment now, I would not look away; I couldn't look away.

"Naughty," he said softly, as he raised his hoof…his boot, slamming it hard upon my mother's head, crumpling it like a potato chip bag before my quivering eyes.

I screamed. I screamed louder and more frantically than I ever knew myself to be capable. A primal rage unleashed within me, as I pushed myself forwards, breaking free of my loosely constructed, protective shell, charging towards the beast…the man who stood in my doorway. I knew I couldn't beat him. I knew he would tear me to shreds for having the nerve to wage such a pitiful assault, but I didn't care.

I slammed my fists against him as soon as I was close enough, though my punches were about as effective as a soggy spitwad. I just kept swinging and yelling, cursing and kicking until I simply did not have enough energy left to continue.

He didn't block my attacks, nor did he return any of his own; he just glared down at me, even after I fell to my knees, gasping for breath, my shirt soaked from the tears and my pants drenched from the fear that kept me confined for so long.

"Nice," he said, his lips widening into a disturbingly long smile that pushed his shallow cheeks into loose wrinkles at his ears.

He lifted his hand, causing me to wince at the terror of my bloody end coming any second, but he just patted the top of my head. Holding his elongated fingers across my scalp, he peeled open my shirt with his other forefinger, tearing through the fabric as though his fingernail had a razor blade tucked beneath. When the claw dug into my chest, I knew this was it.

I bit down, finally closing my eyes and fighting as hard as I could to resist releasing another shriek into the night as I felt my skin tearing, and my blood leaking down my stomach, but it was over before I even realized it. I still kept my eyelids sealed as tightly as I could, readying myself for the following attack, but it never came.

I hadn't even realized the hand had released from my head, as I was so tensed up and shivering all over. When I allowed my eyes to reopen, I saw no trace of the man who had invaded our home; only the bodies and trails of blood he had left behind.

When the blue lights flickered from outside, splashing their strobing illumination across the house I still knelt frozen within, I finally caught sight of Katie's broken body, folded backward in the center, laying next to the split drywall. I was still mentally vacant while a blanket was draped over me, as a man lifted me from the floor, carrying me down the stairs and out of the blood-soaked house.

It took some days for me to speak again; allowing me to tell them what I had witnessed that Christmas Eve, but they didn't believe me; not about the creature anyway. They told me that it was a man in a costume who had broken into our home, somehow splitting the chimney down the center as he forced his way in, but this was something I was not willing to hear at the time.

From what I was told, I became frantic, lashing out and attempting to attack those who had only hoped to help me. That, along with my disillusions about what I had seen that night, earned me a stay in this very facility, where I have been since the night my world was torn apart.

We were a happy family. My father loved me, as did…wait. No, he didn't, did he? He blamed me for his marriage falling apart. So did she…all of them. Katie yelled at me when my dad moved into the guest bedroom. We had a guest bedroom…Wait, this isn't right.

No, it was his fault for mom leaving. The guest room came later after she gave him a second chance. Yes! He hit me. He hit mom too. Katie, though, no he would never hurt her. She was his first; the only child he wanted. Mom only wanted one too…I was some sort of fluke. She had her tubes tied, I wasn't supposed to happen; that's what she told me.

Oh God, she was the one who turned on me first; mom resented what I did to her happy home. That's right! I was just a kid! What the hell…how could I be responsible!? She yelled at me; said I was a curse on their happiness. She always just stood by while he beat me, until one day, he was so drunk, he turned on her too!

Katie and me; we were friends until she kicked him out. She told me it was my fault; that I should've just taken my licks like a good boy. I would stay in my room; just stay out of sight as much as I could, but they'd still yell at me through the door. When dad came back, he wasted no time in reminding me how worthless I was.

That Christmas Eve, I couldn't take it anymore…I made a wish…I asked for this! I didn't pray to God, or wish for Santa to make it stop hurting…I begged the other one to take them away. It wasn't a man. No. It was never a man.

I was too small to fight back; too weak to stand up against them, so I turned to the only one I hoped could set things right. I know what the K carved into my chest stands for now…the scar I will wear for the rest of my life as a reminder.

I was the one who summoned Krampus to our home that Christmas ten years ago. Oh, God. It was me who killed my family, even if it wasn't by my own hands.

Is this a breakthrough, or just further proof that I'm crazy? No. I'm never getting out of here; not with what I know now. Even if I tell them everything, they'll never believe me.

I deserve this. I wanted so much to go back home, but I didn't understand…I am home…I am exactly where I belong after all.